An earlier than usual start this morning - bags ready and breakfast at 7, leave at 8. We were on our way to the lavender farm at a place called Bridestowe (pronounced Brid-ess-toe). I enjoyed this very much, though I don't think Paul did, he doesn't like the smell! The lavender won't be in flower until December, this is what it will look like.
We had a tour, and explanation of the production of the dried flowers, and the distillation of the perfume. I've got a recipe for lavender scones - Paul is saying 'ugh' and 'yuk'.
After that, we drove through a fertile area of green hills to the town of Scottsdale.
It used to be important for tin mining and there was a sawmill at one time. It is still the centre of an agricultural area, being important for dairy farming and potatoes as well as poppies. I hadn't realised that Tasmania was the worlds largest producer of opiates for the pharmaceutical market.
Our next stop was a little town called Ledgerwood. Quite a number of men from the area had been killed in the First World War, and the town planted a tree for each one. Recently, the trees had been declared unsafe, and it had been decided to cut them down, which had produced a public outcry. So each one had been carved into a statue or group of statues commemorating the soldier for whom it had been planted. These statues are quite a tourist attraction now.
We continued to climb, and soon found ourselves in wet eucalyptus forest, which is full of tree ferns. It is not wet enough for true rain forest, but wet enough for tree ferns. There were also lots of foxgloves, which had apparently been planted because they are much used in Chinese Medicine, and lots of Chinese people were employed in the tin mines. They have since mostly left the area, but there are various memories of their presence, and a whole trail you can follow, called the Trail of the Tin Dragon.
After more climbing, we were in rainforest again, but then we descended to the sea, and lunched in a town called St Helens. A reasonably short journey after that took us to Freycinet National Park, where I had hoped to be able to see Wineglass Bay. However, there is no access to the lookout at present, and it is a 3 hour walk from the Visitor Centre, so I was disappointed. However, we were able to have another much shorter walk, and found the bay was full of whales, which we were able to watch. Unfortunately, my camera battery had given out, and anyway, they were feeding just under the surface, so there wasn't all that much to see anyway.
There are many lovely bays you can see from the park.
The Visitor Centre has a lovely (stuffed) wombat. I am despairing of seeing a live wombat, so this is him, he's about two and a half or three feet long - quite big. He is also a different colour from those you see in mainland Australia
After our National Park visit, we drove to the small seaside town of Bicheno where we are to spend the night.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
No comments:
Post a Comment